


Broken

by Nihonkikuasa211



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Songfic, Tag to 1x18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 06:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6108464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihonkikuasa211/pseuds/Nihonkikuasa211
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 1x18, what are Mario's thoughts?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not certain if this work can be considered friendship or not. Take what you will of it.

_Broken_

Mario could only wait outside the hospital as he waited for Angus. The dark-haired resident looked toward the ground, his feet scuffing slightly as he thought deeply about what happened in the past twenty-four hours. Angus… The thought of his name made Mario lick his lips, thinking of how the symptoms of addiction was so similar in the young doctor. He had never told anyone about his past before. His parents remained dead to him, dead as they had been when they were so addicted they couldn’t remember their son. And yet he had told Angus that his parents had been torn apart by addiction. Him, as well. The memory of feeling high and the needle in his arm haunted Mario even now, the taste of the cravings against his mouth as the resident looked at his arms. The scars had faded, but they were still in his mind. And yet what Angus say?

            He had tried to brush him off, just as he had done so long ago.

            Something had been wrong with Angus since the day Malaya had been attacked. Something caused the young doctor to be a shell of his former self, leaving only a man begging for drugs. Rage burned inside Mario as he remembered Heather’s nonchalant reaction to him realizing that she was the one who got Angus the drug in the first place. _It’s not a fucking game!_ Mario wanted to shout to the sky. _Everybody thinks they can win, but they can’t! It fucking destroys you, leaving nothing left and turning you into a monster!_

Mario heaved a breath, breathing deeply as the rage faded as he remembered telling Mike about what was going on with Angus. _I thought only about him. I…didn’t even think about what he could do to other people._ Angus’ presence had left a hole in him since the resident had become distant, leaving Mario half-hoping that someday Angus would look at him again. There were times at night when the dark-haired resident stared at the small photo Angus had forced a smiling Jesse to take after a very rough shift and a haggard looking Mario. The headlock that Angus had him in remained in Mario’s mind, long after the laughter lines and smile had faded to be replaced by an agitated and out-of-control Angus that he had seen in the past few weeks. Mario had never told anyone about how he loved Angus’ laugh. Of how that laughter seemed to defined his friend, and the smile seemed to brighten Mario’s world.

            _I wanted you to know_

_That I love the way you laugh_

_I wanna hold you high_

_And steal your pain_

_Away_

            _I almost lost myself to addiction. I lost my parents. I won’t_ , can’t, _lose you, Angus._

Angus had become a fixture in Mario’s life. It seemed laughable that the boy who had wanted nothing to do with that overweight boy with no confidence, bullying him, became such an important piece to his life. _Angus…_ Mario thought. _You are the first friend I had. Everyone else ran away from me, but you…you pushed me, kept pulling me into your world, and it was only when I started to follow you into that world of yours that you almost became the former me._

_Just tell me what to do, Angus._ Mario sighed as he looked down at the ground again. He thought again of the bright blue eyes and the smile that seemed gone from his friend’s face. _I just want to make it stop, Angus. Tell me what to do._

_I want to take away your pain._

_I keep your photograph_

_I know it serves me well_

_I wanna hold you high and steal your pain_

It was odd for Mario to care so much about one person. How had he come so far? To asking again and again, if Angus was okay, and what he was using. Mario wouldn’t have cared before. The world of addiction and dealing was in his past, dark memories held far away from his current mind-set as Mario stared at his losing friend. He wouldn’t have cared what Angus was doing. In fact, he might have welcomed it. Anything to keep that douche off his back. But now...there was so much more. There was so much more to the world of Mario Savetti.

There was Angus.

            He didn’t want to be alone anymore. Mario used to be so alone, so lonesome that he refused to recognize it until the day that Ted Banks had died. Mario used to be so broken, so fucked-up inside that even he couldn’t figure himself out. But Angus…

            His friend…made him see the goodness in him. To see that there was something beyond the steely eyes and the wall around the heart. Beyond the dirt-poor asshole former junkie. Angus made him see that there was _something_ more in Mario.

            Mario felt needed. He felt that someone actually cared about him, _needed_ him and wanted him. For the first time, someone needed him and wanted him around, and not for their own means.

            It felt good.

            It felt impossibly good.

                                    _‘Casue I’m broken_

_When I’m lonesome_

_And I don’t feel right_

_When you’re gone away_

            _I will stay by you, Angus. You think that admitting your addiction is the last part, but no._ Mario remembered his own rehab, screaming and pleading for it to go away and for it to come back as nurses held him down. It had been six years, and yet the memories still sobered him. And he didn’t want Angus to face it alone. _It’s hard…so hard to give it up. You will wish that you could have just a little, and it will go away. I won’t leave you alone._

_Even if you say worse things than you said to me tonight…I will stay._

Mario remembered of how empty he felt when Angus kept avoiding him. The look in his eyes when he saw Mario, guilt and something else echoing in his eyes. The tone he had used when Mario was trying to help him, save him. It felt to Mario as if Angus wasn’t there anymore.

                                _You’re gone away_

_You don’t feel me here_

_Anymore_

            But now it was changing. Mario was certain that Mike would be able to get to Angus. He had to. Because Mario wouldn’t be able to take it if Angus turned into his former self and would one day be loaded into a body bag. It wasn’t just that Angus would lose his license if he was caught. Mario knew of how important medicine was to Angus, and he knew that his friend would never forgive himself if he lost a part of him. And Mario knew that if Angus lost his license, it was likely that the two would never meet again.

            And it was something Mario didn’t like to think about.

_The worst is over now_

_And we can breathe again_

_I wanna hold you high_

_And steal my pain_

_Away_

_There’s still so more left to learn_

_And no one left to fight_

_I wanna hold you high_

_And steal your pain_

_There’s so much I have left to learn about you, Angus,_ Mario thought as he looked up and stared at the sky. _I want to know you…like I have failed to so many times before._

_‘Casue I’m broken_

_When I’m open_

_And I don’t feel right_

_I’m not strong enough_

“I hate to say this, Angus,” Mario whispered into the sky, where he could see the stars shining above, “but there’s no way I would be strong enough to live without you.”


End file.
